For over 15 years, millions of football fans across the globe have been living out their managerial-shaped dreams in a computer game. The game in question, Football Manager, has become such an important part of our sporting culture, that it's now hard to imagine life without it.
Since its development in 1992, Football Manager has continued on a yearly basis to attract men, women and children of all ages, myself included, with its realistic and immensely addictive gameplay, to the point where it begins to take over your life.
The newest edition in the series, Football Manager 2010, was released last month, and as with every updated version; it's more detailed, more realistic, better looking and ultimately even more addictive. This got me thinking how realistic it actually is. If, for example, someone can guide Northwich Victoria all the way from the Conference North to become champions of Europe on the game; does that mean they could do it in real life as well?
The only way this could be answered is for a successful Football Manager user to be installed as manager of an actual football club, but a Chairman who had any ounce of sense would surely laugh off any applications from such people. However, this has been attempted before; in 2006 John Boileau applied to be Middlesbrough's new manager based on what he'd achieved in his Football Manager career. Their Chairman, Steve Gibson, was charmingly humorous about the application, sending a letter back stating that John was "the outstanding candidate" but that the club had decided against his appointment, as his "undoubted talent would result in one of the big European clubs seeking [his] services."
This is what I was going to do; apply to a manager-less club and see what happened. I decided to draw up a 'Football Manager CV', listing some of my notable achievements on the game over the years. After doing this, there was the small matter of finding a club to send the application to. Originally, it was going to be Grimsby Town, who'd recently sacked their manager Mike Newell, and would be perfect given their close proximity to Lincoln, but after some research, it turned out that they already had a shortlist of managers. Since my application is slightly tongue-in-cheek (to say the least), it probably would've been a bit of a waste of time.
Kettering Town were the next possibility. They were left without a manager when Mark Cooper had been snapped up by Championship side Peterborough United. I was all ready to post the letter when I read on the internet that their goalkeeper had been appointed as player-manager. Brilliant; another disappointment.
After a bit of a discussion with Bradley King, Twisted Magazine's Sports Editor, fellow Football Manager enthusiast and my assistant manager should I, for some bizarre reason, get a manager's job, we both realised we'd missed a club who had been without a manager for some time; Tranmere Rovers. After sacking former England midfielder John Barnes on the 9th of October, they had had a caretaker manager in ever since. So, Tranmere Rovers it was. The letter is on its way to the west coast as I type, although being a student I opted for a 2nd class stamp, adding to the fact that the Royal Mail is already a bit 'all over the place' at the minute, so it might just make it for Christmas.
Just for the record, I can categorically say now that I have no chance of getting the job (although, Mr Chairman, if you are reading this, I would be more than happy to take it, if offered) but I'm interested in hearing what the board have to say. Miles Jacobson, a key person in the development of Football Manager at Sports Interactive, wished me luck with my application on Twitter, but failed to give me any advice since he hasn't been a manager himself, which is fair enough.
I will do another blog if and when I receive a letter from the Tranmere board, and I'll let you know what they say. Who knows, next time I might already be at the helm of Tranmere Rovers. All I know is that I share first names with arguably the greatest manager of all time; Sir Alex Ferguson. It's fate.
Note: a version of this article was originally written for Twisted Magazine.
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